PRESS RELEASE: An Irish Carol Returns!

November 5, 2014: This December, in a special fundraising initiative, The Keegan Theatre brings back its beloved holiday show, AnIrish Carol, for five performances at Theater J. All proceeds from these performances will go to the company’s capital campaign, with a special emphasis on finishing the basement level, or “artist space.”

The majority of the basement level of the renovated Keegan Theatre will be used for artist space that the theater did not have prior to renovation, including rehearsal space, dressing rooms, laundry facilities, a greenroom, properties and costume storage, and office space. Keegan hopes that these five holiday performances will raise enough to help ensure that this piece of the renovation is completed.

“Obviously, the most important part of the renovations at Keegan is the performance space itself and the patron areas,” explains Mark A. Rhea, the company’s founder and producing artistic director. “If we fall short on fundraising, the artist level and its corresponding line items would be the first to get dropped from the renovations budget. We had this idea to bring An Irish Carol back as an artists-helping-artists initiative, a new angle to the traditional fundraising we’ve been endeavoring for the last few years.”

For An Irish Carol, all the artists will donate their time – from actors to designers to production staff. Additionally, Theater J has donated the use of their theater for this limited run engagement. “We’re so grateful to Theater J’s leadership for their generosity in providing us a space to perform this show,” Rhea says. “An Irish Carol has become such a key part of Keegan’s holiday programming, and it’s just terrific that we don’t have to let this year go by without doing this show. And, hopefully, we’ll raise enough to help cover the artist space at the same time.”

Written by Dublin native and Keegan company member Matthew J. Keenan, An Irish Carol runs December 26- 28, 2014 at Theater J in Washington, DC. On Sunday, December 28th at 6pm, there will be a special Meet the Cast Champagne Reception presented by Well Dunn Catering followed by the closing performance. Set in a modern Dublin pub, An Irish Carol is an homage to Dickens’ classic — told as only the Irish can. The play, both comic and touching, follows one evening in the life of David, a wealthy pub owner who has lost touch with his own humanity in the interest of self-protection and material success. But on this Christmas Eve — challenged by a voice from the past, provoked by those in the present, and faced with the reality of lonely future – David’s life may change forever. An Irish Carol is a modern fable, told with the biting humor and incisive candor of its Irish playwright.